What happens when you loose your identity? When your job doesn't reflect who you are and when you get no connection anymore with friends nor family? This existentialist crisis is what the protagonist Song is facing. She is a young woman trying to find her own self in the middle of Beijing. Her slow breakdown starts when she receives a parcel with mushrooms that are not meant for her, but she can't return them as there is no sender information. This starts a series of events, some real and some in a dreamlike realm that will throw her off and send her in a full nervous breakdown after which she will reach a state of acceptance and even happiness.

In a strange way and despite the fact that Song lives in a culture that is extremely different of mine, I immediately felt connected to her and certainly in the parts where she describes her relation to her performing the piano. Never have I read about the immens fear one can have performing, not afraid of the public or the music, or the fear of tripping over some notes, but something much more feral. I have had that same fear as a young adult, and I did quit playing the piano because of it., and I never had the words to describe why that happened. Until now.

I absolutely loved the prose, beautiful but also very restrained and I was often reminded of some magic realism that I've read as a young adult, certainly the Flemish authors Johan Daisne and Hubert Lampo and also a bit of Isabel Allende. An absolute 5 star read, that I can truly recommend !

3.5
I liked the opening and premise of this book, but it didn't feel as strong as Braised Pork. I think the plot was a little more aimless, and I would've liked for more elements to be resolved / clarified by the end. However, I still enjoyed An Yu's writing immensely. As with Braised Pork, I loved the metaphors and surreal aspects of the novel. I also loved the way I could connect some of the wording directly to Chinese phrases that I know. It makes the writing feel like home.

Received a free copy from Netgalley.

A young woman in Beijing juggles a dead end career as a piano teacher, a marriage of waning passion and the impending possibility of motherhood. Meanwhile, packages of mushrooms start arriving at her doorstep every week, and her dreams get increasingly claustrophobic and bizarre.
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As I've not read Braised Pork, I can't say that I'm very acquainted with the writer's particular brand of surrealism, so this was definitely an "it's not you, it's me" case. Three things recur in the novel- mushrooms, marriages, music (and maybe the occasional semblance of a ghost)- and the narrative blends multiple scenes of cooking, tending to a plot of mushrooms or playing Debussy's Reverie with long meditations about family, passion, ambition, belief and artistry. That said, the concept is better than the execution. I do like a good mycological motif or a slow paced introspective storyline, but this felt like it was teetering on the wrong side of disjointed and surreal. The ending alone leaves about fifty unanswered questions. Maybe that type of inconclusive narration works for other litfic readers, but it didn't do much for me.

I thought this was written beautifully, but unfortunately it didn’t make a lot of sense or had much of a plot. It did keep me interested mostly throughout and was a quick read. Overall, it was just a kind of weird. All views and opinions stated are my own. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of the arc in return for an honest review.

Ghost Music is a slice-of-life novel set in contemporary Beijing that tips into the surreal as our main character Song Yan processes loss, life, grief, and what it means to love and be loved. At the start of the novel, Song Yan has long since given up her dreams of being a concert pianist and teaches other children piano now. Despite pleas to her husband Bowen for them to have children, he consistently refuses, even when his mother moves in and begins pressuring Song Yan for them. Things change when mushrooms start appearing at the door, followed by a letter from a missing renowned concert pianist, and Song Yan has to examine everything she thought she knew about her life and the people in it.

This novel was very introspective and thoughtful; oftentimes I found myself rereading sections to attempt to absorb the full scope of feelings that the author conveyed through Song Yan. The slice of life interposed with the surreal helped to break up some of the darker or slower elements to the narrative, and overall I felt that this was a very thoughtful book. Thank you to NetGalley and to the publishers for this title.

My earlier opinion of Braised Pork, the author's earlier book, could serve as well here. She is still utilizing foods in her metaphoric plots, still has a couple not quite connecting, and still examining lives of upper middle class citizens of Beijing. This one didn't run as smoothly as the earlier effort.

(3.5 stars)
"He would tell me that one day I'd become a better pianist than him and play on these stages. He couldn't have guessed how different the future was to be from the one he promised me." Ghost Music is a meandering observation on the limits of talent—the point where someone reaches the limits of their ability—and what effect that has on their life. It does so using three characters, Song Yan, her dead father and Bai Yu, all of which play the piano. Song Yan gives up playing when she realises she can't reach the heights of her father's hero, Bai Yu, and then moves on in life doing the things she things she has to, within the confines of a melancholy marriage with a workaholic called Bowen. When Bowen's mother comes from Yunnan to live with them in Beijing, the flimsy relationship between the couple is put under pressure, and Song Yan is forced to confront her disappointment with her resulting life.

Curiously, what begins to change Song Yan's life are mushrooms: "almost thirty per cent of all known species in the world are found in Yunnan because of the region's diverse terrain and mild climate." They become a bridge between Song Yan and her mother-in-law as they cook mystery boxes of mushrooms for Bowen: "my mother-in-law told me that in recent years people in Yunnan had started to sear matsutake in butter."

I found this a pleasant if melancholy read about a lonely wife who cut herself off from her source of identity and pleasure (the piano). She goes a little mad, and the book strays into supernatural elements to explain the prodigious talent of Bai Yu. Nothing is tied up neatly, so if you're into strong narratives Ghost Music might not be for you, but in painting a portrait of a lonely woman who thought her life would be quite different from how it evolved, author An Yu does a lovely job. This book will remind you that only a lucky few of those groomed to be stars actually end up being so, for the rest of them it's a life of shattered dreams.

Wow, just know that I cried. I love love love how it all unraveled! It did take me a bit to actually get into it but don’t regret continuing.

Ghost Music is a dreamlike, surrealist, atmospheric novel. The writing was beautiful and lyrical and like a good piece of music, transports you into another realm.

I enjoyed the dreamlike aspects of the novel, it was sleepy and I felt like I was drifting along the pages. The descriptions of Beijing and food were great and I loved getting to experience the characters life there.

As I don’t play any music, and I am not a huge fan of classical music, the connection between the main character and Bai Yu was lost on me. I didn’t feel or get anything from their interactions and storyline.

I enjoyed the relationship dynamic between the main character, her husband and mother-in-law and the familial drama that accompanied that but in the end, I found the main character to be too passive.

I also thought from reading the description of the novel that there would be a lot more magical realism and that the strange orange mushroom and the doorless room would feature more.

Ghost Music was a good story about art, love, and loss with atmospheric writing and complex family dynamics, but ultimately fell short of my expectations.

I am not sure about this one. It has such a promising start and the story itself was very intriguing. I liked the magical realism as well. The characters were realistic and i could relate to a lot of it, the disappointment at not having fulfilled what one thought was one's life's purpose, family relations, relationship with in laws. But about halfway through the book, the story started to fizzle out. I could not make out the direction in which the author wanted the story to move. There were a few directions in which the story was getting pulled, the mushrooms started to make less sense and the roles of other characters started to muddle.
I could finish this as the writing was flawless and the words were flowy. Maybe I had problem comprehending any hidden meaning this book wanted to convey.
I hope the author writes a sequel to clarify the story for this one as it had great potential.

I've been reading a lot of Asian/Asian-American literature this year, and thought this sounded very interesting. Unfortunately, it was just a little too out-there for me. I don't think I really understood what it wanted to say. I don't think we'd have a huge market for it with our patrons.

Ghost Music is a great piece of work. it's described as dealing with themes of grief and self-discovery and I thought An Yu dd an incredible job exploring those topics.

I became a fan of An Yu after reading her book BRAISED PORK, and I have to say GHOST MUSIC didn't disappoint. We get the same kind of every-woman character who moves through some fantastic and surreal situations, taking them in stride, and it left me with such a strong impression at the end. Very well-written, and kept me turning the pages--although I wouldn't describe it as a "page-turner" in the traditional sense.

The style reminds me a bit of Haruki Murakami, with its everyday life constrasted with surreal , dreamlike experiences. Plus it has classical music, lots of cooking with mushrooms, and a cool Beijing setting! If you're a fan of Haruki Murakami but want something that's a bit more female-centric, I think you will LOVE this book.

An Yu's "Ghost Music" is a surreal reading experience that grips you from the opening lines; the characters feel displaced, the atmosphere is normal and concurrently abnormal and the plot lines remain unresolved, mirroring real life.

Ghost Music follows a young couple in China who recently moved in with their mother-in-law and starts receiving mysterious mushrooms in the mail.

This lyrical prose-filled story follows Song Yan as she navigates living with her husband and mother-in-law in Beijing while also tutoring the piano out of their home. With a frequently absent husband and pressure from the mother-in-law for a grandchild, Song Yan struggles to find ground to stand on.

But with the delivery of boxes of rare mushrooms, Song Yan finds a chance to bond with her mother-in-law who is resistant to living with them and wished she had stayed in her hometown.

This story was fantastical and at some points hard to follow but filled with the notion of the constant question of ‘did I make the right choice?’ I think we can all relate to Song Yan.

I was definitely left with many questions at the end but enjoyed it nonetheless.

Thank you to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I am thankful to be given this opportunity to read and review this e-ARC. The first thing that attracted me to this was the cover, the exceptionally cute mushrooms over lines like music notes! Yes, I'm the kind who looks for books based on covers first then the content LOL!

This is also my first time reading An Yu's novel and I am surprised that it is well written. It is straightforward, easy to understand and I was able to grasp the story being told. However I did find it a little monotonous across that I was finding it hard to absorb the plots and finishing the book. Luckily it was not a door stopper so I could pushed myself to complete it.

Ghost Music is set in modern day China about a piano teacher who started having family issue when her mother in law moved in with them in Beijing. Her mother in law misses Yunnan a lot and wished to go back there. In the meantime, she has also been pestering for her son and daughter in law to have children. Upon the arrival of the anonymous mushroom gifts, their lives begin to change. The piano teacher's obsession with the anonymous mushroom gifter, Bai Yu, had her seeing her life in a different light.

As the story slowly unravels, I begin to understand the complexity of it. It is referencing life in general and we should move forward instead of being boxed up aka thinking out of the box, for example. I'm sure we may have different opinions upon reading it and interpreting the in-depth meaning of this novel differently. It truly had me thinking of my life at some point.

I enjoyed the overall meaning of the story and the simple way it is told but I did wished for it to be a little more upbeat. As I've read it on different occasions during my commute, it wasn't as dry luckily. I don't read as many genre like this so if you happened to like Haruki Murakami's books, minus the satirical ending, this might be something you can expand on. I might look up Braised Pork when time permits :-)

Ghost Music is a beautifully written story of a couple in China who are going through a crisis. It’s the kind of emotional situation that every couple goes through at some point. But this is no ordinary domestic drama. Woven throughout are ghosts and other strange strange happenings. The whole book has a very dreamy quality that makes the events surreal.
While I did enjoy the book, I wasn’t sure what was going on a lot of the time, and I found the ending a little too vague. I don’t always need solid closure, in fact I do like a challenging ending, but this was a head scratcher. I could put the pieces of the story together. Then again, if did leave me thinking.
All in all, I appreciated this book for its lyrical prose even if I was left with questions.
Thanks to NetGalley for the review copy.

Asking yourself whether you’ve made the right choices in life and questioning your next move when you feel your destiny is sliding off course can make you so dizzy that you feel the need to shout out to the planet, demand it to stop spinning and let you get off so you have time to ponder over all the things gone wrong.

Awkward and overwhelming, the universe of the two piano players who have given up their professional careers to try to pursue an intimate, personal accomplishment engulfs the reader with its ghostly orange glow and timeless invasion. The psychedelic atmosphere brought on by the various mushroom interludes helps explore the depth of human thought and emotion.

Along the self-discovery exploits, the mechanisms of various coping systems come into the limelight when presenting secondary characters. The complexity of the short story and all its parallel and entangled axes is quite compelling. Loss, depression, non-inclusion, old age, unconfronted tragedy, solitude, unapproached issues and regrets – these are but a few of the facets of the characters’ lives that are addressed in an unusual, yet meaningful way.

To bring about change, acceptance and development, sometimes broken rhythms, harsh truths and angled turns are necessary. Delving deep into the uncomfortable in order to reach peace and understanding is the only solution left. When no way out seems available, the only way left is the one in.

Eerie and distressing, An Yu’s writing is, at the same time, intriguing and beautiful. The peculiarities of the Chinese culture where respect is paramount, oftentimes to the detriment of self-assertion, are also highlighted. As a side note, I couldn’t help but notice the pun between the writer’s own name and the Yunnan province, one of the leitmotifs of the novel.

I recommend the book to all those who appreciate the writings of Riku Onda, Mieko Kawakami, Yōko Ogawa and/or Hiromi Kawakami.

***

The more well mannered she was, the more I sensed her disregard for my will.

I realised then how much more difficult it is to change behaviour developed through the years than it is to adopt an entirely new one.

We are all like trees, I thought, our heads swaying in the wind, our roots buried in the ground, unseen by anyone, and at time forgotten even by ourselves.

Most people, whether they like to admit it or not, find pleasure in discussing things that are none of their business.

Maybe we all become children to our children once we’re old […].

[…] growing old was not a process but something that happened between one instant and the next […]

Loss came in all shapes and forms, but it hadn’t occurred to me until now that you could lose the things you never had.

Empathy is a liar. It seduces us with the impression of selflessness, yet whatever feelings we think we can fathom are confined by the extent of our own hearts.


***

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
Thank you, #NetGalley.

It was an intriguing premise, but lacked cohesion. It was very surreal similar to a studio A24 film or a Salvador Dali painting. I have never enjoyed either of those things so this book was a confusing mess to me. I see the appeal though and I know there are readers for this book. It was creative, inventive, genuine, but I couldn't make heads or tails of what was happening and was frustrated. It definitely had moments though.

Song Yan is a pianist who feels crushed by her life. It's not what she wanted, but she also doesn't have the energy to fight against it. And that is when the mushroom shows up. He's orange, and he talks, and he could be in her head or he could be real and kidnapping people from their lives and making them feel crazy. In the end, you decide.

Beautifully written and as drifty as ghost music itself. I love that it's about life and real issues.